Adiranthe 13 - Final

Eleria smiled to herself at the rather inglorious picture her former captor made, forced to all fours, saddled and bridled and just waiting for her. Glaring, but what could he do about it? She held all the power and she knew it.

She stepped forward and took the reins, swung her leg over and sat down in the saddle. Just as she did so, Kardan did indeed try to move, she felt his strong muscles bunch under her in what would have been an attempt to throw her off backwards. But the magic prevented him. Oh, this was glorious!
"Bad pony," Eleria laughed, "I said stay still!" She smacked his backside hard. She felt his muscles gather again, but to no avail. He tried to curse her through the bit.

She slid her feet into the stirrups, settling her weight easily in the ornately tooled saddle, and took up just the right tension in the reins. It was almost like being astride a real pony, in a way that just a bare back horsey ride from a friend would not have been. In the saddle she was comfortable and secure, that and the bridle giving her total command. It put her utterly in control.
She could feel his greater strength waiting tensely beneath her, all restrained energy, wanting to get rid of her, but unable. Fun!

"Lets put some of that energy to good use!" Eleria sang, "forward, pony!" She jabbed the spurs against his thighs twice, lightly, mockingly, even though the verbal command would force him through the magic of the silk.
He began crawling forward under her! Somehow his obedience was surprising, even though she knew he literally had no other choice. She sat, feeling the gentle swaying movement through the saddle.

She reined him almost automatically as they neared the turn into the passageway, just as she would her real pony, Dapples. In other words, quite a gentle command, not force. Unfortunately the steed she was riding took no notice. So she used the reins to quite literally pull his head around. It wasn't that hard. And for good measure, she dug her right spur hard into his hip, causing his back half to instinctively move away from that leg even as his head was pulled around. Before he knew it, he was turning, under her control, without the silk having compelled him. He growled at her and tried to slow, and she laughed and forced him forward down the corridor. Between silk strips and spurs, he could literally not disobey.

"You might as well settle into a nice steady gait here," she told him. "There's a long way to go especially at your turtle like pace."

The Goblin King was, of course, not feeling very good about himself. Anger and humiliation warred within. To be defeated, robbed and ridden by this slip of a girl...! And worse, to have her make him obey her this way! The ignonimity! And yet, he knew he could not escape what was happening to him. What options did he have? To wait and see if he could catch her off guard when she was not using the silk to control him? perhaps throw her. She had lured him - he hated to admit it - into a false sense of security once before. So now he would pretend his obedience, and eventually she would give him an opportunity. He told himself that, as he carried his rider submissively through his own domain.
She wasn't that heavy, and of course he was stronger than she, but it was still hard work, he was breathing faster as he moved along, and she heard it.
"Aww, is this hard work?" Eleria said tauntingly. "Lets try a canter, shall we?" And Kardan found himself cantering awkwardly, more awkwardly than agile Eleria had, shuffle-jumping his hands forward, then his knees, then his hands, in an embarrassing parody of a canter. "Faster!" Eleria called, this was fun! Her spurs found his thighs again, once, twice, and poor Kardan was going all-out underneath her as she bounced lightly in the saddle. After only a short distance it robbed his breath quickly, and even through his trousers, his knees were beginning to feel sore. He didn't want to admit it but he would have loved to stop.

But she wouldn't let him! It wasn't until his breath was burning in his lungs that she finally pulled him up with the reins. She laughed to hear him panting under her. She lifted herself up a little in the stirrups, and bounced her weight on his back several times, letting him feel the impact of her weight right through his body, before forcing him on yet again, at a walk now, reveling in his breathlessness.
"Keep going, little pony," she mocked, "we're not even in the caves part yet!"

In a short while, she reined him firmly around into a different passage, this one didn't lead to the caves that would take them outside, but rather to an area where the Goblins resided.
As she had hoped, a Goblin came skittering along, and she reined her human steed to a halt. "Rear up!" she hissed, pulling hard on the reins, and he did, with her balanced easily in the saddle, then came back down again to all fours when she pushed her weight forward.
The Goblin stopped and its eyes practically boggled out of its mis-shapen, pallid head as it took in the scene.
"On your knees, filth!" commanded Eleria, and she took Kardan's magical necklace from where it hung round her neck, and held it up menacingly. The stunned beast fell to its knees, bewildered by the strange scene.
"I have defeated your master," she said, and it looked down at its sweaty, horse-bridled, humiliated King. Kardan glared at it and his muscles bunched, trying to grunt something through the bit at the goblin, but Eleria pulled his head back hard, ruining the attempt. She ordered the goblin, "You will bring my real horse, the dappled grey, out to the surface and wait for us there. If you do not, your miserable life will be worse than your master's here."
The goblin stammered and hesitated.
Eleria held up the necklace once more, as if to wield its powers. "Now!"
It ran.

Eleria sighed. "Being King is hard work," she said, relaxing in the saddle. "Now carry me to the surface, slave."
Growling unintelligibly through the bit, Kardan obeyed.

During the arduous trek through the halls, tunnels and caves, the Goblin King tried a couple of times to throw his rider. The first time, he tried lulling her into that false sense of security, acting tired and obedient, then when he thought her guard was down, attempted to throw himself into a bucking fit. Sadly for him, the command of the magic prevented him. The second time, he thought her distracted as she gazed at the weird, strange twisted beauty of the caves around her, but again, to no avail.

Finally they reached the area of cavern where the very first showdown between them had happened, where Kardan had lain in wait and held up his stone in the darkness and practically blinded her with magical light. By this time, the Goblin Breath was truly near exhaustion, his muscular frame trembling and wet with sweat; it  was quite a feat for anyone to carry a human weight that long.

"And thus it ends," Eleria said, half to herself and half to him, still in the saddle, as if he really were just her horse. "We have come full circle. This is where you meet adventurers who come to explore the supposedly empty Adiranthe, fight them and rob them... you are a thief too, really, aren't you, Goblin Breath? Shame you tried to enslave me. You weren't ever going to get away with that."

She dismounted him, and commanded the silk to keep him there on his hands and knees until nightfall. She removed first the saddle, then the bridle. He worked his jaw, relieving the ache that came from wearing it so long.

"Do not ever come back here, little pony slave," he growled at her. "I shall recover, and so will my magic, and you would not escape my wrath." The recovery part was true, for as well as the resources that lay beneath the ruins of Adiranthe, he still had the sorceress, whose powers he would use to enchant a new crystal to control the magics of the underground domain. "And you will always remember how I did indeed enslave you, and how you reacted to me, despite your fire."

"Ooh, the boy is trying to salvage his wounded pride," she taunted back, even though that last part had a small basis in truth. "Goodbye, Goblin Breath." And she walked away.

She found her way through the traps that she had come through to get here, having to tell herself to be careful; still high from her victory and a little shiver from the come down from adrenaline.
Finally she reached the surface, and held her hand to her eyes, shielding them from the unaccustomed sunlight, looking around.

She saw a pair of figures, one smaller than her, one bigger and much more solid and four legged. A pang went through her heart. Dapples! She rushed forward, and indeed, it was the goblin she had intimidated, with her dappled grey pony.
"Good. You are wise to have obeyed me," she told the goblin sternly when she reached them, one hand on the magical, crystal necklace round her neck. "Now go, and do not try to follow, or it will be the last thing you ever do."
The goblin bowed its head and scuttled back to whichever tunnel it had come from. She watched until it had disappeared.

She felt a firm nudge - ok, more like a head-butt - and warm breath on her shoulder, and turned. Dapples regarded her curiously with his dark, liquid eyes, as if to ask her what the hell was going on.
"Oh, Dapples, are you ok? Did they do anything to you?" She looked over her grey pony with concern, but he seemed fine. Overcome with emotion suddenly, the thief-girl threw her arms around her pony's neck, glad to have his solid warmth, glad for contact that did not involve battle.
The horse snorted, as if to show amusement at his owner's nonsense. Eleria laughed through her little wave of emotion. "Oh, Dapples, we're rich. You're going to live in horsey luxury." And not feeling like riding right now, she collected her gear and led her grey pony away from the ruins of Adiranthe, talking to the animal about the riches they had won.


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